Mission: Strange
by spiderviveka
Summary: Nurse Verrik has been drafted for a covert mission on an alien planet. He must pose as a medical worker in one of the Planets largest hospitals to uncover a plot which could have serious repercussions for the Federation. But things get quite out of contro
1. A New Job

"I'm looking for a job."

The personnel director stares back at Verrik and begins hacking and coughing. She takes another hit from her respirator mask and sucks the mucus back in, all in one great, sickening snort. It sounds much like a something wet and mushy, perhaps some kind of animal intestines, being sucked through a vacuum.

"Well, what are you qualified for?" she asks the young andorian man. Her voice is scratched and distorted, being produced by a crude electronic synthesizer. She gasps for more of the gaseous drug through her plastic mask, and coughs more, this time sputtering blood.

Verrik's antennae flatten against his head at the sight of the emaciated vulcanoid woman coughing a green sludge of blood and mucus. He nervously begins to fondle the edge of his shirt collar as he tries to remember his answer. He had been coached for all of this, but somehow now that he is actually there on Thetara trying so desperately to get a position at the northern continents largest hospital, everything he trained for seems to have escaped him.

"I'm a nurse." he admits, timidly. "I used to have a job in New Berlin, but I heard that the hospitals here on Thetara pay better."

"So?" she grunts back at him, gasping for air. "Nurses are a dime a dozen... We have plenty of androids... that can do a better job... than some federation slime... like you."

"Thats not all though," Verrik continues, regaining some of his confidence. He hands her a PADD containing his alleged resume. He is confident that it will pass as being authentic, the Kisheyans are not a people to question such things. "I have training in biological engineering. I understand you have a need for technicians in that area."

The woman stares at him as she once again reaches for the mask as she looks over his resume. She then types something in to her computer console which chirps mechanically as every new command is entered. The machine, like everything else in the office, is outdated and seemingly covered with a thin brown film of filth and germs. There are no windows or chairs, save the one that the personnel director is currently seated in. The seat, and everything else in the room is cheap plastic plastic, discolored from the weathering of the years.

The place is quite depressing to Verrik, then again, the entire shared the office's dim gray fog. He can't seem to remember why he agreed to take the mission to begin with. He didn't join Starfleet to be a covert operative, in fact, that was the last thing he had in mind. A career of helping others in some of the federations best hospitals. Developing new cures for diseases, having all the glamor and prestige of a medical practitioner.

But now he finds himself in an underground office of some nameless alien medical corporation. A place where lives were bought and sold, and the only reason that people became doctors or nurses to begin with was for the sheer lust of capitalism. This was nothing like the halls of Starfleet Medical. This was not the bright, pristine, and cheerful echoing corridors of the Federations finest medical facility. No, this place was quite different. He was there, after all, to investigate some very disturbing allegations involving biological engineering and some very prominent names in Starfleet and the Federation. His mission carried great consequence. All of it relying one meek and nervous starfleet nurse.

"You're application... has been approved... Nurse Zether" The director gurgles out at last as she hands Verrik a new PADD. "Report to... resources on floor... sixteen, room... twelve hundred... for re-designation."

Verrik takes the PADD and says nothing else. He turns to leave as the woman collapses back into her seat, choking down more of the drug. He noticed a few people carrying around the tanks of the mysterious gas since his arrival the Thetara just two days before. He quickly learned that it was generically known as "omega" and had not only highly intoxicating effects, but also wreaked catastrophic damage on ones respiratory system. It quickly causes the deterioration of its users lungs, who eventually begin to cough them out in chunks. The mortality rate is quite high.

The andorian smiles and nods as he walks briskly through the hospital. The staff is primarily Kisheyan, though there are other aliens present. The kisheyans, he has only learned from his debriefing, are a vulcanoid species.. They share the basic characteristics with their logic-compelled cousins. The pointed features and copper based skin. They are aesthetically different in that they have a notable variety of hair and skin colors, but most distinctive, are their eyes. The corneas are rather feline like, with slitted, vertical pupils as well as being highly reflective and sensitive to light.

But far beyond their differences from the Vulcans in appearance, their social evolution has proven to be quite different as well. Their planet is scarred by thousands of years of war. They are a violent and greed driven society. They are one of the Alpha quadrants leading producers of cybernetics, but only for their own devices. They have extensively advanced weaponry, and also quite notably, share their planet with a race of android slaves. They have produced such beings for nearly a thousand years, both male and female, and virtually identical to organic Kisheyans. They developed the droids to the point where they had evolved emotionally past their creators. Thus the androids are kept in place with harsh psychological abuse and physical constraints. For without the androids, the Kisheyan infrastructure would surly collapse. There has, however, been an android resistance movement since they gained sentience.

Verrik passes two of the slave droids as he steps onto an elevator. The idea of one being actually owning another makes him feel completely disgusted. One of his closest friends and mentors at Starfleet Medical is a android doctor known as Lennox. The idea of someone owning him, or any sapient android, was simply unthinkable.

Verrik's attention is drawn from his own thoughts to the blaring music on the elevator. It sounds like small animals being tortured to death, and knowing the Kisheyans, it very likely was just that. He examines the keypad by the door for a moment. Most of the buttons have long since been torn off and the metal shined underneath the grime of coffee and what could only be blood. Circuits are exposed like a vivisectioned animal and he wonders how the lift is even functional. But at last the doors screech open and he heads through the corridor, In search of room twelve-hundred.

The floor is white linoleum and the lights flicker above him. The whole place smells like medicine and the putrid stench of the not so recently dead. This makes him wonder if the hospital even has a morgue, or if they just leave the dead bodies around to rot. As he passes a patients room, he peers in the door, only to discover the source of the odor. The bloated green-black face stares at him from seepage soiled sheets. It appears to have been a woman, and he can not tell if she had been pregnant, or had simply become incredibly bloated. Whatever had happened, it looks as if Verriks sarcastic musings were correct. It looked as if she had just been abandoned and left there.

The andorian holds back the urge to vomit as he stumbles away from the room, his antennas twist as his entire body writhes from the shock of what he just saw. He had heard the rumors of the gruesome nature of Thetara, but never realized it would be anything like this. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself as he continues his search for "resources".

At long last, he knocks on the door. The sign reads what his internal translator decodes as being "resource". The door is rusted and decayed much like the rest of the hospital and the red dust scrapes his knuckles as he raps onto its surface. He waits and there is no answer. So he cautiously opens the door, not quite knowing what to expect. The room is dim and the floor creaks underneath the weight of his thin frame as he searches for any signs of life.

Suddenly, a light is switched on and the entire office is flooded with the bright fluorescent cascade of light. He shields himself from it momentarily and then looks around. In front of him, stands a very attractive Kisheyan woman with dark hair, slicked back in the traditional style of her species. Her pointed ears delicately arched toward the top of her head and her bright, lavender colored feline eyes glistening strangely in the light. In the floor, at first he only sees a huge pool of green blood. After staring at it for what seems like an eternity, he notices that there is a shape in the middle of it, but not just a shape, its a _body. _ A man, around the same age as the beautiful woman, who appears to have suffered a severe neck wound.

"Don't mind him" the woman smiles as she takes Verrik by the arm and leads him away from the gruesome scene. "He was the last Medical Director. I'm Dr. Ferizin, his replacement."

The doctor pulls off her white coat, which Verrik only now notices is covered in blood, and hangs it on a coat rack. Underneath is a very tight, black leather dress. It becomes apparent to the andorian, who is momentarily quite in shock, that this was going to be nothing like he had expected.

"You must be Zether, one of our new nurses. Welcome to Ryxirin Memorial Hospital."


	2. Hiya, neighbor!

Verrik's footsteps echo through the decomposing intestines that are the streets of Ryxirin City. Only the sound of falling, acidic rain reciprocate the passing noise of his movements. The city lights are vibrant, but when the storms come few people venture outside. Verrik's vinyl suit covers his entire body from the corrosive liquid falling from the sky. Still, the weather is unpleasant and there is little room for his antennas in the hood of the suit. He has been put to work in the emergency room, even though he has experience in genetic engineering. He suspects that this so his new employers can test him out, to see if he is a spy. He just hopes that they don't find the truth.

It has been raining all week, it started the day after he began his work at the hospital. He has seen several cases of people with burns due to the rain. Mostly derelicts who fall asleep outside or forget their protective suits. The injuries tended to be relatively minor, but one case in particular continues to haunt Verrik. A young woman, no older than sixteen, was dumped in the entrance of the emergency center and ignored for some time. She was naked and crying in the floor, her body hunched like a heap of wet leaves. Finally, since it seemed that no one else would, he rushed to her side to try to help. When he gets closer he notices that she is covered in severe chemical burns. The rain had apparently eaten through her skin and quite a bit of her muscle. The bones of her hands and feet were exposed, all white and bony like plastic twigs. He had no idea where she came from or how this happened. She was unrecognizable, save the fact that her muscles were red in color, indicative of any of hundreds of humanoid species.

"Can some one get me a stretcher! She needs help!" the nurse yells out in vain. His is ignored, so he repeats his plea. "Please! She is going to die if we don't get her to trauma room!"

Finally, a rather bored looking Kisheyan nurse walks by, taking a deep hit from her compressed omega mask. She sputters and snorts as she struggles to keep her footing. Her flesh hangs from her face like a walking corpse, though she is likely sixty at most, which is quite young for her species.

"Don't waste... your time" she finally manages to spit out, "she's just a whore... I saw her... tied to a pole... by the metro station... yesterday." The nurse gasps and breathes from her mask once more. "She got... what she... had coming."

Verrik ended up retrieving an anti-grav stretched. By the time he loaded her on it and got her into a spare exam room, it was far too late. He stares at her corpse and tries to make sense of how so many people can be so indifferent to the suffering of another being. Dr. Ferizin walks into the the room and smiles enchantingly at Verrik. His antennae hang like wilted flowers. She attempts a rather futile, one handed massage of the andorians nearest shoulder. He pulls away and stares sullenly at the naked, burned corpse, wanting desperately to find a sheet to cover her. To give her some kind of dignity.

"Zether" Dr. Ferizin says, "You aren't going to win any popularity contests around here by wasting everyones time and money on disposable patients.

"Popularity contests? I'm sorry, I thought this was a hospital."

"It is, but this isn't Argalia, or wherever the hell you came from. In my hospital, we don't waste time of patients who can't pay, androids, or any other worthless waste of space."

"I'm sorry doctor. I didn't mean it that way." Verrik manages to force a smile and try to play his part. "I just want the money, just like anyone else."

He has to work hard to hold back the need to vomit. Money has never had any purpose to him, but saving lives always has. He knows he needs to try to "fit in" for the sake of the mission. But how far must he go? Must he truly turn callus and let innocent people die? He won't progress in his mission if he continues to act like a Starfleet nurse, but how could he live with himself when he acts like a Kisheyan? Suddenly it seems clear why so much of the population is addicted to one substance or another.

Dr. Ferizin pulls a hypospray from her pocket and injects herself in the neck. Her eyes roll back into her head and she is overcome with the familiar warmth from the sudden swelling of her blood vessels. Her cat pupils are dilated into huge black diamonds as she frowns at the nurse like a disapproving mother.

"Now, I want you to take this thing to the burn site. This is the only part of the building where space is an issue, as you damn well should know. Get moving!"

Wordlessly, Verrik pushes the stretched out of the room and moves toward the dreaded "burn site". The place where the corpses from the entire hospital are piled into one great mound. Once a day, or whenever the twenty meter deep pit fills up, they use a powerful beam to vaporize the bodies and other medical waste. It is crude, but effective, the Kisheyans hold very little emphasis on burial practices.

When he arrives at last to the site where other medicals technicians and nurses are dumping the bodies over the edge of the pit, he takes great care to pick the body up and carry it to the edge. The others stare at him as he drops her in the pile. The entire place reeks of rot and flesh dissolving from the acid rain, and the pit looks very much like the mass graves of ancient earth during wars. He runs back inside quickly, pulling the stretcher behind him and trying not to get burned. He looks down at his gray linen uniform and realizes that he is covered in the girls blood and mucus from her extensive burns. Not that anyone would notice, much of the staff look the same.

Verrik opens the door to a rather archaic building, he walks through the pitch black corridor and down the stairs. There is a faint light, somewhere within the milky depths of the maze. Somewhere, deep in the underground depths of the building, is an insect infested room being rented by the andorian holds an adjacent door to the animal vein corridor with the pale milky light. He pays a good deal of money for the place, one could say it was in the bad part of town if such a location could be distinguished from the rest of the planets densely populated surface. Finally, he gropes the damp wall until he feels his door handle. He inserts the key, an old fashioned plastic one, into the curiously textured latch.

As he is about to walk in, he feels a heavy weight coming down on his shoulders. He falls backward and is pinned to the floor. "Give me all you're money!" a surprisingly child like female voice demands. He can feel the person sitting a chest, holding the blade of a knife to his throat.

"I don't have any! Get off me!"

Surprisingly, the robber complies. She stands and pulls Verrik up by his hand.

"You aren't Kor'siv! What are you doing here?"

"I live here! Leave me alone, I don't have any money!"

A light flickers on somewhere nearby in the hallway any Verrik's would be robber is better illuminated. She is a female humanoid with rodent like features and a long, rat like tail twitching nervously behind her. She has three finders and a thumb on each hand, she wears no shoes and has opposable toes, quite similar to her hands. Her eyes are large and black, protruding slightly from their sockets. Her face and the front of her abdomen are pinkish exposed flesh, while the rest of her is covered with a thick, grayish white fur. Her nose is much like that of any common rodent as her ears are large and round, protruding from the sides of her head. She wears heavy purple eye makeup, torn pink, leopard print pants, and an equally tattered white shirt. She grins at Verrik, her well sharpened teeth exposed.

There is a an awkward moment of silence and then a sudden metal clanking noise coming from the ceiling. Verrik looks up, still rather listless from the robbery. Another being like the female in front of him scurries on the metal grating of the ceiling above them. This one is a male, with black fur and equally colorful clothing. He drops down and snickers at the female.

"Way to go, Riivi! I told you that fucker moved!" he says laughing.

"Well way to go! Now he knows my name! Say, andorian, didn't you just say you live here?"

Verrik is unsure whether he should answer this question. For one, he is unfamiliar with the species of the two individuals now standing before him. He has no idea what their customs or culture entail. Finally he just nods nervously. The female gives him a rather intense pat on the back as she makes a most unusual chattering noise with her teeth.

"Well hi there, I guess you're our new neighbor! We live across the hall, I'm Riivi and this is Niru, my idiot colleague. So who the hell are you, andorian?"

"Ver- Zether... my name is Zether."

"Well, Zether, if thats your real name..." Riivi says, folding her knife and shoving it into the waist of her pants. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other! Sleep tight!"


End file.
